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IGN Review of Six Flags Fun Park
Brash Entertainment has gone out of business. Ceased operations. Closed its doors. The news of the shutdown came just a few days ago, and lends further support to the fact that the gaming industry is as tough and difficult a business to crack into as it's ever been -- Brash had only just launched last year, after all. Things might have been different if the publisher had been attached to a significant hit game sometime in the last 12 months, but it unfortunately was not. And Six Flags Fun Park -- newly arrived on Nintendo's DS and also a Brash production -- won't be received as that needed success story either. It's just an average mini-game collection that'll likely do little to offset the company's financial woes. Sorry Brash.
Six Flags Fun Park is a theme-park-themed adventure filled to overflowing with different mini-game designs. It casts you as a young, wide-eyed park patron given free reign over an entire amusement park's worth of rides, food booths and games and tasks you to try out each one. You can choose to either roam at random, exploring the park's six different areas, or you can endeavor to complete the "story" tying everything together -- the only way to unlock every possible experience available.
It sounds like a lot of fun, and may even remind some you old-school NES fans of Capcom's video game adaptation of exploring Disney World, Adventures in the Magic Kingdom. The lofty premise falls flat quickly, though, as each and every area of design in Six Flags Fun Park proves to be compromised in some annoying way.
First up, the rough and muddy 3D visuals. All of Fun Park's characters and environments are displayed indistinctly, with either low-poly 3D models or 2D sprites captured from stills of low-poly 3D models representing every graphic element. It's difficult to determine any detail in most everything you see, and the mini-games further complicate the issue by often placing important gameplay elements next to or "underneath" the hinge separating the DS system's two screens.
Second, the control. Everything in Six Flags Fun Park is stylus-driven, and poorly so. Your character's waddling walking animation around the park is an early frustration, which is then complicated by the precision the game demands to begin conversations with non-player characters you meet. In the mini-games, it's even worse -- several of the games are nearly unplayable thanks to the poor recognition of stylus input. You'll try and try again to flick the touch screen to throw a dart at a balloon, or toss a chicken leg to a hungry crocodile -- but you'll rarely succeed. You'll spend almost all of your time just trying to figure out how to compensate for the crippled control, and almost none of your time actually having fun with any of the activities.
Third, the presentation and storyline. This game is called "Six Flags" Fun Park, but it really has nothing to do with Six Flags at all. It's clear that the title was developed as a generic amusement park adventure and then only later had that notable branding slapped across it. The storyline seems equally tacked on -- though it was surely part of the design from the beginning, its inefficient progression and the difficulty of actually figuring out where you're supposed to go next to advance the plot will mean that few players will spend the time to pursue the tale's conclusion.
And finally, even gamers ignoring the story and just busying themselves with playing the different games will end up confused too, as the title oddly alternates back and forth between different currencies and prizes for winning at each challenge. Some games will cost you tickets, and give you a reward of coins. Some games will cost you coins, and give you a reward of stuffed animals. Some games will … you get the picture. It's all a jumbled mess.
©2008-11-18, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Six Flags Fun Park is a theme-park-themed adventure filled to overflowing with different mini-game designs. It casts you as a young, wide-eyed park patron given free reign over an entire amusement park's worth of rides, food booths and games and tasks you to try out each one. You can choose to either roam at random, exploring the park's six different areas, or you can endeavor to complete the "story" tying everything together -- the only way to unlock every possible experience available.
It sounds like a lot of fun, and may even remind some you old-school NES fans of Capcom's video game adaptation of exploring Disney World, Adventures in the Magic Kingdom. The lofty premise falls flat quickly, though, as each and every area of design in Six Flags Fun Park proves to be compromised in some annoying way.
First up, the rough and muddy 3D visuals. All of Fun Park's characters and environments are displayed indistinctly, with either low-poly 3D models or 2D sprites captured from stills of low-poly 3D models representing every graphic element. It's difficult to determine any detail in most everything you see, and the mini-games further complicate the issue by often placing important gameplay elements next to or "underneath" the hinge separating the DS system's two screens.
Second, the control. Everything in Six Flags Fun Park is stylus-driven, and poorly so. Your character's waddling walking animation around the park is an early frustration, which is then complicated by the precision the game demands to begin conversations with non-player characters you meet. In the mini-games, it's even worse -- several of the games are nearly unplayable thanks to the poor recognition of stylus input. You'll try and try again to flick the touch screen to throw a dart at a balloon, or toss a chicken leg to a hungry crocodile -- but you'll rarely succeed. You'll spend almost all of your time just trying to figure out how to compensate for the crippled control, and almost none of your time actually having fun with any of the activities.
Third, the presentation and storyline. This game is called "Six Flags" Fun Park, but it really has nothing to do with Six Flags at all. It's clear that the title was developed as a generic amusement park adventure and then only later had that notable branding slapped across it. The storyline seems equally tacked on -- though it was surely part of the design from the beginning, its inefficient progression and the difficulty of actually figuring out where you're supposed to go next to advance the plot will mean that few players will spend the time to pursue the tale's conclusion.
And finally, even gamers ignoring the story and just busying themselves with playing the different games will end up confused too, as the title oddly alternates back and forth between different currencies and prizes for winning at each challenge. Some games will cost you tickets, and give you a reward of coins. Some games will cost you coins, and give you a reward of stuffed animals. Some games will … you get the picture. It's all a jumbled mess.
©2008-11-18, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved